Duke, UCONN, Nova, Cuse

[Dhall]

Hate to say it, but we need to win 2 of these or we are not making the tournament. We can't expect to go undefeated the rest of the games, so assume we lose at a minimum 2-4 other games and probably 4-6. Look at the schedule.

Unless we beat two of these teams, our NCAA resume will be: weak RPI and no (or one) wins over top-20 teams. Same old story. Winning record but nothing impressive and NIT.

I kind of wish we had played Fairfield, Stetson, Savannah State, etc. before Vandy and Illinois like usual - these games are even more meaningless than they have been in the past years. Maybe John Thompson, Jr. actually knew what he was doing to get into the tourney for those 20 or so consecutive years.

On the bright side, I think we can definitely win two of these games plus some in the BE tourney if we make some improvement. Go Hoyas.

[GUHoya07]

I think this discussion is way premature. Let's give it some time before we start saying who we have to beat.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

I think we'll definetly beat cuse the rest you never know i believe we can beat any of those teams if we play as good as we can play. But as 007 said it's too early to call these games must win.

[DFW HOYA]

Why is there this run of doom and gloom posts? How many people penciled in a win AT Illinois, anyway? A 42 game win streak over non-conf. foes, 26 in a row at home, and Georgetown was favored? If you saw last year's game you knew Illinois is a tough matchup .

Georgetown may lose another game in December in the UTEP tournament if they're not careful. Then again, if they're not careful, they could lose Saturday. But last I checked, you don't hand out tournament bids in December.

[FLHoya]

dfw said:

Why is there this run of doom and gloom posts? How many people penciled in a win AT Illinois, anyway? A 42 game win streak over non-conf. foes, 26 in a row at home, and Georgetown was favored? If you saw last year's game you knew Illinois is a tough matchup .

You must be a newbie. I'm sure once you hang around this message board a little while and check out this lovely website we've got going here at HoyaSaxa.com, you'll learn that we pretty much only travel via emotional rollercoaster. ;D

[CO_Hoya]

Ah, screw it. Let's just cancel the rest of the season.
Edit-ed to add emoticons:

[RBHoya]

How novel, a negative post pointing out gloom and doom, complete with conditional statements ending in "we won't make the NCAA's."

It's December. Let's just play and play hard.

One game at a time!

Play hard every time out and let the RPI and the committee take care of themselves. Just playing tough, playing hard, playing smart... that's all we can do right now. Let's not worry about who we have to beat in February to help our RPI, let's worry about beating Fairfield in 36 hours.

I've never seen a fanbase that is as "Chicken Little" as the Georgetown fans on these forums. It must be a product of the bad times in the years before I came here. I guess maybe y'all have forgotten what it's like to win, and you're expecting us to lose, leading to all these threads where it seems like the apocalypse is upon us on December 9th.

[theEDGEfactor]

it is very premature but it may be true. unless we can win every other game except these 4

[RockawayHoya]

dhall said:

Hate to say it, but we need to win 2 of these or we are not making the tournament. We can't expect to go undefeated the rest of the games, so assume we lose at a minimum 2-4 other games and probably 4-6. Look at the schedule.

Unless we beat two of these teams, our NCAA resume will be: weak RPI and no (or one) wins over top-20 teams. Same old story. Winning record but nothing impressive and NIT.

I kind of wish we had played Fairfield, Stetson, Savannah State, etc. before Vandy and Illinois like usual - these games are even more meaningless than they have been in the past years. Maybe John Thompson, Jr. actually knew what he was doing to get into the tourney for those 20 or so consecutive years.

On the bright side, I think we can definitely win two of these games plus some in the BE tourney if we make some improvement. Go Hoyas.

That assumption is about as premature as the shot Drew Hall took with 4 seconds left in the game from half-court. Totally unnecessary, at least until January at the very earliest.

[Gold Hoya]

dfw said:

Then again, if they're not careful, they could lose Saturday.

I sure hope not, my schedule says no games till Sunday!

[LizziebethHoya]

I agree with most everyone on here; this is a bit pre-mature. No one knows exactly what JTIII's logic was behind this schedule. All we can do is notice the absence of a few cupcakes and the addition of some tough games.

In my opinion, it will say a lot more to the selection committee if we work out the kinks now and really do well come February, rather than find out some of the problems while we are in the middle of Big East play and lose a few close ones.

I think this puts us at a big advantage compared to the other teams. Duke has been marginally tested and we all know Dockerty's buzzer shot isn't going to fall all the time. UConn has been tested quite well in the Maui, but I can't help but wonder how the addition of Williams will change some of the chemistry of the team. Syracuse likes the Dome a lot. In fact, they stay in their little orange heaven this entire month - all while playing teams which will, at best, give them a little workout. So, I repeat, it's just TOO early to tell.

[lichoya68]

yes dfw is very sharp and sees we play saturday... and yes lets take one freaking game at a time... thats fairfield and need to beat them to have anything happen ..anytime.. ok... go hoyas .. one at a time ... dehorn the stags

[FLHoya]

rockawayhoya said:

dhall said:

Hate to say it, but we need to win 2 of these or we are not making the tournament. We can't expect to go undefeated the rest of the games, so assume we lose at a minimum 2-4 other games and probably 4-6. Look at the schedule.

Unless we beat two of these teams, our NCAA resume will be: weak RPI and no (or one) wins over top-20 teams. Same old story. Winning record but nothing impressive and NIT.

I kind of wish we had played Fairfield, Stetson, Savannah State, etc. before Vandy and Illinois like usual - these games are even more meaningless than they have been in the past years. Maybe John Thompson, Jr. actually knew what he was doing to get into the tourney for those 20 or so consecutive years.

On the bright side, I think we can definitely win two of these games plus some in the BE tourney if we make some improvement. Go Hoyas.

That assumption is about as premature as the shot Drew Hall took with 4 seconds left in the game from half-court. Totally unnecessary, at least until January at the very earliest.

Hey, leave my boy Drew alone!

Remember, Drew's two best plays of his career--the full-court drive and dish to Wesley Wilson to beat Providence and his three pointer with a minute to go at the Dean Dome--happened in March. So, uh, you know, I guess he peaked late in the season too.

You're all just lucky I didn't call it Generation Hall.

[RockawayHoya]

FL, you are recounting possibly the only two times Hall did anything right for us. He more than anybody during my 4 years at G'town made me want to break my TV/radio/chair I was sitting in at MCI/MSG than anybody who's ever donned a Hoyas uniform. All I remember is UConn, Pitt, and all the other times he came up short. Saying he peaked late in the season is correct... if you take into account he brought nothing to the table from Dec.-Feb.

My most vivid memory of Drew Hall: sitting in my Euro Civ class the first day of school sophomore year. Drew walks in, sits down about 3 seats from me. The professor quickly goes over the books that we'll need to read for the semester. Drew mutters loud enough for the back corner of the room to hear, "Man, we're gonna have to do work in this class?" He abruptly walks out, 10 minutes in. Never saw him in class again.

But enough about Drew Hall. The guy just brings up painful memories for me.

[Deleted]

dhall said:

Hate to say it, but we need to win 2 of these or we are not making the tournament. We can't expect to go undefeated the rest of the games, so assume we lose at a minimum 2-4 other games and probably 4-6. Look at the schedule.

Unless we beat two of these teams, our NCAA resume will be: weak RPI and no (or one) wins over top-20 teams. Same old story. Winning record but nothing impressive and NIT.

I kind of wish we had played Fairfield, Stetson, Savannah State, etc. before Vandy and Illinois like usual - these games are even more meaningless than they have been in the past years. Maybe John Thompson, Jr. actually knew what he was doing to get into the tourney for those 20 or so consecutive years.

On the bright side, I think we can definitely win two of these games plus some in the BE tourney if we make some improvement. Go Hoyas.

Another useless "sky is falling" post.

Say G'Town loses all four of those games and win's the rest of their schedule and end up, what... 21-6 off the top of my head, and near the very top of the new Big East everyone agrees is a beast? Yeah, I think they boys would be dancing.

This season isn't about four games, its about 27 games. Get some perspective. This is a "Selection Sunday" topic, not a pre-Christmas one.

[Dhall]

To those who say my original message is premature, take a look a our schedule in total. We have 4 significant out of conference games and we are 1-2 with Duke remaining. We have a total of 2 games against the top 3 teams in the Big East (UCONN, L'ville and Nova) instead of 6 games against them. The point is that we can end up with a good record in the Big East but with very few "quality wins".

I'm not trying to be doom and gloom, just pointing out that our schedule is a little weird this year because we may have had 3 of our best 6 chances to notch an impressive win occur between Nov. 25 and Dec. 8. Maybe WVU or Pitt or somebody else will step it up but I don't see them being top-25 RPI at the end of the year and of course there's no guarantee we'll beat them either. Thankfully, we will beat Duke on national television, wind up with a very solid BE record even if it includes mostly victories over bottomfeeders and then we'll make some noise in the BE tourney to seal the NCAA bid. However, maybe the schedule could have been set up a little better with either Vandy or Illinois coming later in the season like Duke.

Drew Hall was one of the tallest point guards we have had here in a while. He was definitely good for 2.1 rebounds per game to go along with 1.6 assists. Lay off.

[Frank Black]

I agree with DHall. This season is lost. Also, they should cancel Christmas.

[Deleted]

dhall said:

However, maybe the schedule could have been set up a little better with either Vandy or Illinois coming later in the season like Duke.

That's a legitimate point of discussion.

I'm assuming they aren't placed later in the season because teams are reluctant to schedule too many OOC games right in the heart of their tough conference schedules, where you generally play three games a week. Finding time for multiple OOC opponents would thus prove to be difficult.

Again, there's no reason to worry, folks. The boys looked worse last year in loses to Temple and Illinios and rebounded pretty well. I'd have to say Vandy looks a lot better than Temple did, and a loss at Illinios is nothing to worry about.

If the same patterns are visible in late January-early February, maybe then we should revisit this Chicken Little yap.

[DFW HOYA]

buffalohoya said:

I'm assuming they aren't placed later in the season because teams are reluctant to schedule too many OOC games right in the heart of their tough conference schedules, where you generally play three games a week. Finding time for multiple OOC opponents would thus prove to be difficult.

More than time, it's a logistical nightmare against multiple conference schedules, TV, and arena availability. If Vandy or Illinois wants to move a game around on campus, not much problem--if Assembly Hall or Memorial Gym is open Thursday at 8 instead of Wednesday at 7, done. Thanks to the lack of any other option (read=lack of institutional priority for on-campus basketball options), Georgetown is locked into a very narrow window of games and times at MCI (including, of course, next to no Saturday evening games). Even if Georgetown and Illinois could somehow find a spot in both conference's schedules, the game could collapse because the place was booked for that night two weeks earlier.

[Dhall]

Somehow we arranged Duke at home on a Saturday in January and Fairfiled at home on Dec. 11 and Savannah State on Dec 21 at MCI. Switch the Fairfield or Savannah State game with Vandy (or a similar type team) and I think we win that game. Playing them so early hurt us. Having played 3 tough games already, the cupcake games are now really 100% useless where we could have at least viewed them previously as "warm-up" games for the team, especially the freshmen. The "no tough games during exams" argument is empty too - these guys have tutors, special arrangements for missing class and making up tests, etc. all year.

People write about how we looked worse at the beginning of last year ... well we didn't make the tourney last year.